


Interviews With a Woodelf

by dreamingfifi



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Asexual Character, BAMFs, Balrogs can fly, Blacksmithing, Complete, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Drama, Elf in our world, Elves among us, Escape, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Interviews, Medical Experimentation, Medieval History, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Search for the Avari, The Valar are dicks, Tolkien is kinda a character in this, Tragedy, fandom gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9826796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingfifi/pseuds/dreamingfifi
Summary: It's 1998, and a man with a driver's license thirty years out of date has been found. This would be insignificant, but he looks exactly like he did thirty years ago.





	1. The Tape Recorder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roughly mid-night, a few months ago, a tape was given to me by a man seeking somewhere to spend the night. The mud was so thick on him I had the distinct impression that he had rolled in it intentionally, but my, was he fine! Really tall, broad shouldered, big hands, black hair, gentle face, and you can tell I'm single, can't you? I'm still not certain what possessed me to pick him up at the traffic light, but I think it had something to do with the way he looked at me. His glance put me at ease and begged for help at the same time; it felt as though some part of me knew him better than I did.
> 
> When we got home, I forced him into the shower and put his clothes into the wash with some de-lousing detergent. At one point he poked his nose out the door and asked for a towel. (I live in an apartment alone, so I don't keep my towel in the bathroom very often. It lives on my pillow or where ever I end up sitting while drying.) When I gave it to him, he smiled agreeably and said in a very eloquent voice, "My name is David, by the way. Thank-you." Then he looked me in the eyes. They say you can feel it when someone looks right through you; well, he sliced through me to reveal my pitiful little soul; I just about melted onto the floor in one thousand tiny pieces. The funny thing is that I can't even remember what color his eyes were. But I got his message: "Stop peeking through the crack in the door!"
> 
> After he was done in the bathroom, I gave him my cousin's pajamas with my eyes politely closed. He thanked me again, and I swore that I could hear a bit of the Oxford lilt in it. He bedded down on the couch, and I hid in the corner with my computer and my Tolkien books, my writing haven. At some point, when I was having an in detail discussion about whether Balrogs could fly, I found David behind me, reading. I jumped about three feet in the air, but luckily, I didn't scream. He tapped the screen and said, "If you were one of the most feared demons in the known universe with a very large wingspan, how could you fly in an abyss with such a narrow width?"
> 
> I probably should have been wondering how he would know what the width of the abyss was, but I wasn't. I feared for my life.
> 
> Being uninterrupted, he continued. "You are also incorrect in this point: 'If Balrogs (that ought to be Belroeg, if you are careful about the plurals of Elven words) could fly, why didn't the Balrog fly off of the top of Mount Caradhras?' Perhaps the Balrog was injured in the battle with Mithrandir, and couldn't fly as a result?"
> 
> He turned to me as though he expected me to argue back. "What do you want?" I asked, squishing myself into the far corner of my chair.
> 
> "To point out your mistake there. Belroeg can fly. I know it."
> 
> As normal, my mouth started working before my brain, and I said, "You're a bum!"
> 
> He straightened up suddenly and looked away. I wanted to melt into a little puddle of water and evaporate into nothing. "Oh yes, I forgot that," he said. "I must have frightened you. Forgive me."
> 
> I nodded rapidly, thinking that this was the part where he told me he really was the Baltimore rapist on the run from the police.
> 
> "Can you keep a secret?" He walked over to the door, where he left his backpack. "I'm not running away from the police."
> 
> My lungs were about to explode.
> 
> He tossed a cassette tape to me. "You'll enjoy this, from the looks of your book collection."
> 
> That was how my involvement began in this adventure. I don't have much part in it at all, I just typed out the manuscripts.

* * *

( _The tape is high quality, and when listening to it I could hear echoes, as though they were in a small room. I pictured it as an interrogation room; claustrophobic and so dull it sucks whatever energy you had left into its dirty beige paint. There are two voices: a young man with a really nondescript European accent, and an old man was a deep gravely voice, as though he spent too many years smoking. I've named him Grimvoice. He speaks in **bold** font. My descriptions are in parenthesis and italicized_.)

**Please state your name.**

-I am Alger Smith.

**And your age, for the record.**

-I am thirty-one years old.

**Really? That's odd, because your driver's license here says that you were born in 1937. That would make you, what, sixty-one?**

-That is my father's.

**Really? Your faces, weight, and height all just happen to be the same?**

-Yes. These things tend to run in family.

**Do you know why you're here?**

-Not entirely. I doubt that my father's driver's license, and a handful of parking tickets are the true reason I am here.

( _I can hear papers being shuffled around. They are of the flimsy copy machine type_.)

**You're here because you paid the currently incarcerated Mr. John Boulnois to forge a birth certificate for you. Here** (Heavier _, stiffer pieces of paper, the type photos are printed on, are knocked against the table._ ) **are the surveillance photos of you approaching his car. Here, you exchange money with him and receive your new birth certificate.** ( _The young man doesn't respond, but a chair squeaks as someone stands up_.) **We're willing to reduce charges against you if you testify against him, and you tell us why you needed a new birth certificate.**

-No. I can't tell you that. I refuse to testify.

What's the matter? We know this guy had ties with the mob, if you're worried about-

-I'm not, and you're lying to me. That was a good kid who needed extra money for tuition. He wouldn't take charity. The paper, which is so fuzzy in this picture that you can't make out, is a piece of calligraphy artwork. A picture of a swan using the letters of the word. I bought it from him.

**We didn't find a picture of a swan in your apartment, but we did find a brand new birth certificate. Why did you want a new one? We found another one in the trash. According to it, you are in your forties. Got a hot date you wanna trick?**

-No. Why are you obsessing over my age?

**That accent of yours, is it Polish?**

-What is this, the CIA? Why do you care?

**Polish, it must be Polish. See, we have uncovered some Nazi files on a prisoner named Algar Smitt, who fits your description to the inch. Apparently this Algar Smitt was a suspected spy for rebels, who escaped their custody. They wanted him caught so badly, they even had a picture of him. Let me see your forearms.**

-Why?

**Why not?** (A _brief pause, and someone else stands up_.)

-Keep away from me! You have no right to- ( _A dull thump echoes in the room, possibly a punch, and I can hear Alger falling against the wall_.) Let go of my arm! You have no right!

( _Grimvoice wheezes as though he just ran a mile, but triumph is obvious in his voice_.) **Why would anyone but angsting, crying teenagers want a tattoo like that?** ( _Paper_ _is rustled and flapped about a bit._ ) **The numbers match the prisoner number of Algar Smitt. Are you going to tell me that this is your grandfather?** ( _Grimvoice grunts as he lets Alger go_.)

-My grandfather came here because he thought this was a free country. No secret police; no abuse of rights. He barely survived, and now I'm being treated like he was by the Nazis. Is it because I look Jewish? I have this tattoo to remind me of what humanity is capable of. ( _The chair squeaks as someone sits down again. More laminated papers are plopped down on the desk_.) What's this?

**1914: A British man by the name of Algar Smith served in the army, but was discharged after being shot up in 1917.**

**1921: an Algar Smitt applied for citizenship in Poland.**

**1941: He was collected by the Nazis, and vanishes for quite a while, but then, in 1955, he applies for citizenship in America as Alger Smith.**

**1968: he gets his first car, and driver's license.**

-What are you trying to prove? That you have successfully traced my family history to the First World War?

**All without aging a day. This is the same person in each of these photographs.**

-That is impossible. We look similar is all.

**Do you classify yourself as human?**

-( _nervous laughter_ ) That is a very odd question. What do you mean?

**I mean, what the hell are you?**

-This is illegal, isn't it? I want a lawyer.

**No lawyers. You aren't human, so we don't have to treat you like one.**

-Please explain; if I'm not human, what am I?

**You're immortal, and your alias, I find it interesting. Alger Smith. I did my homework. It's a very old name. Ælfgar Smiþ, means Elfspear Smith, and to me, it looks like that was your beginnings. Tell me, do you even have parents?**

-Yes. One of each. I'm not the only one in the world with the name Smith, or even with the name Alger. I think you are looking for a way around my Civil Rights. If a judge were to look at me, do you think that this person would see anything more than a crackpot stalker and a man with a few overdue parking tickets? You can't even prove I bought a forged birth certificate!

**It won't matter, because no judge will ever see this. You have no rights.**

-I see what you want. You want a confession out of me, but not for a crime. You want me to admit I am immortal! ( _I can hear Alger pacing about the room. He must have been wearing heavy work boots of some sort, because he's very loud_.) If I did, would you leave me alone? Would you let me continue to live out my life as quietly as possible?

**Not yet. We want to hear about your life. We want to know everything. Your perspective on our history is valuable to us.**

-Look me in the eye, and say that again.

**Your perspective on our history is valuable to us.**

-You lied. What do you really want? Money?

**Look me in the eyes, and tell me that you don't want someone to know who you are. Think back to World War One. You told a young man you met there everything, didn't you?**

-He was interested in the song I sang for the dead. He wanted to learn my language.

**That young man wrote a few books about your homeland, and they still bring his family millions of dollars each year.**

-I didn't know that would happen. Is that what you want? To write books? Copyright lawyers would be eating that fortune the second it was printed.

**We don't want to just make books. We want someone to help us make sense of the world and where it is heading.**

-Not even I can tell you that! I drift downstream, like most people. I don't intend to have an impact on anyone.

**You could still help us. With your immortality, you could be a king, and you could overturn the conflicting religions with the proof of Eru!**

-This is your world. I shouldn't even be here. I refuse. No.

**At least, you could open your life to us.**

-No. I want to leave. I look into your soul, and I see greed. I'm not an angel; I'm not a saint; I was born the same way that you were; and I fear death, same as you. I can see that you want something… physical from me. What would happen to me after you have my life's story and political point of view?

That is n-

( _At this point, the young man started screaming, so loud and high-pitched that the tape couldn't record it, so there is nothing but loud static for a while, then the sound of shattering glass. Then Alger's breathless voice whispers, "Namárië!" into its microphone, and the tape ends_.)


	2. The Video Camera Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a few weeks of absence, David came back. He was cleaner this time, and wearing jogger's clothes. He gave me that smile again and said, "Is that couch of yours getting lonely?"
> 
> After a bath and a cup of hot cocoa, he curled up onto the sofa and asked me if I had listened to the tape. I was in my little computer corner again, and deep in a MSN argument with someone who hadn't read Morgoth's Ring. "Huh?" was my bright response.
> 
> "Did you listen to the tape I gave you?"
> 
> "BRB" I typed then scooted away from the desk. "Yeah, I did." I said this nonchalantly, trying to hide the fact that I had listened to it thirty times a day to get that transcript ready. "I have a few questions about it actually." A few was an understatement. I had a prioritized list that I typed up, but realized that I didn't have an address to send them to.
> 
> David smiled wryly. "I thought you would. I'll only allow you one question, because I'm weary of questions right now."
> 
> One question? That was obvious. It had been at the tip of my tongue ever since he appeared at my door. "Were you the person being interviewed?"
> 
> He visibly flinched. "Yes." His ears were sticking through his hair, and he suddenly became conscious of them, and patted his hair down. Then he smiled brightly and said, "See, told you I wasn't on the run from the police. Can you still keep a secret?"
> 
> I nodded.
> 
> Keeping the blanket around his shoulders, he walked over to the grocery bag he came in with, and unwrapped another tape. "This is a video tape, you'll need a cover for it to work." He handed it to me, and I saw scabs around his wrists and a few fingernails that had been broken into the pink. Seeing my face, he re-iterated, "No more questions."

 

* * *

 

Another dull room. This time, Alger is curled up in a corner, snoozing. The screen shows Alger from above, at an angle, as though the camera is in the very corner of the room. There is no doubt: David is Alger.

"Good evening, Alger."

His head snaps up, and he glances about the room. He spots the camera, rolls up his sleeve and waves his tattooed arm at it. "I feel almost as though I have been here before, am I correct? I am honored that you would be able to bribe a police station into housing a nutcase's interrogations."

"And, what if I am part of a government conspiracy-"

Alger waves his finger at the camera, as though he's scolding a child. "Don't demean yourself so. No non-totalitarian government is that organized. You are nothing but an obsessively bored and wealthy old man."

"And who are you?"

"Last time we met, you proved to me that I am an immortal." He mimes putting pieces of paper on an imaginary table before him.

"I mean, what is your name?"

"You also told me my names."

"Your real name."

"All of my names are real."

"The first name you ever owned."

He stops miming to scowl at the camera. "Pilimorion."

"That would be your father name, one of the _essi_ , correct? What does it mean?"

"Son of Blackarrow. My _amilessë_ (mother name) is Legrist or Keensword in English." He flattens his hair over his ears. "May I have a chair, or are you keeping me uncomfortable on purpose?"

"After what you did with the last chair we gave you, no you may not."

Laughing, he stretches his arms over his head. "That minion didn't have dental insurance?"

"If you are uncomfortable, we can give you a single pillow, that's all."

The door opens for a split second, and someone throws a cheep bed-pillow into the room. He doesn't bother to fetch it. Before he has another chance to distract the conversation, Grimvoice says, "What are the names of your parents, and what are their nationalities and jobs?"

"Were. They are dead."

"Forgive me," Grimvoice says quickly.

"How could you know? They died before I came here. No tell-tale driver's licenses." Alger looks at the floor, obscuring his face a little. "Once you know my story, are you going to kill me?"

An awkward pause passes. "No."

"If you send me back to the Valar, I don't know what will happen to me. I may be treated as one who went willingly against Eru and the Valar, never allowed to join my kin in Mandos and never allowed to be reborn, like Fëanáro."

"Ah, so you're scared. You broke rules to reach our world, didn't you? I always wondered why you didn't flee back to Aman after your imprisonment by the Nazis. You spoke to that young man in the trenches out of fear: you thought you were going to die, and you wanted someone to know who you were!"

Alger leaps to his feet, glaring into the camera as though he could reach the mind on the other end, and somehow destroy it. "Likewise to you," he says quietly. "You record this so that you have documented proof I exist, like a biologist preparing to dissect a rare specimen." His hands begin to shake, so he clutches them behind his back. "Then I am trapped. Tell my story and be slain, or wait until you become impatient in your ailing health and slain me."

"You were about to tell us about your parents."

He slumps to the floor like dejected rag doll. "Right. My parents."


	3. The Video Camera Part 2

"My father, Pilimor, was a hunter and warrior when the time called for it. He perished in the Battle of Five Armies. He was a Sinda… born in Doriath in the age before the first sunrise. My mother, Caralain, or Redthread, was an exiled Noldo. She dyed cloth, one of the most respected artisans in Taur-nu-Fuin. She perfected a brilliant red dye… hence that _epessë_ (lore name). My friends nicknamed me 'Carangol' or 'Redcloak', because she often dressed me in her red cloth. She died of grief; her heart ached for him so. She didn't live to see the passing of the Necromancer."

"I thought you would be one of the Noldor, with your black hair. Are you tall for an Elf, or just for us?"

"The black hair comes from my mother. Otherwise," he pauses to unfold his legs and measures them with the palm of his hand. "I'm not very tall for an Elf… I'm shorter than my mother by several inches, but taller than my father. Average. When I first arrived in this god-forsaken place, I thought I had happened upon a colony of dwarves that had taken to cutting their beards off and living above ground," snickers he, pretending to pat someone's head just above his waistline.

"Malnutrition," Grimvoice grumbles. "Where were you born?"

He squints. "In Doriath, during the sunlight. Morgoth conquered Doriath then, but my personal memory of that is vague. I do remember many long, hungry marches, and how the corners of Mother's mouth stiffened whenever Father put a quiver on his back. She dyed the fletching of his arrows black and sang to make them fly straight. When the running finally stopped, we were in a dark forest called Taur-nu-Fuin. I had spent my early life fleeing from Morgoth."

"And then? Did you marry? What was your profession?"

"My fate is too strange for romance. I believe now that I will never marry." Alger frowns up at the camera. "I am a smith. That ought to be clear by my names. I specialized in forging armor and weapons. These days, they are dull replicas for movie fans, renaissance festivals, Civil War reenactments, and the occasional collector. I do lots of Living-History museums. They always need blacksmiths that won't burn the forges down. It's not a bad living, though I'm not in this to make money, so I live quite lightly. Understand; if I started making a lot of money, people would take notice of me, and this encounter might have taken place years ago."

"One way that we tracked you was by your bank accounts. You changed accounts and banks every ten to twelve years, and you moved to a new town at the same time. Were you afraid of people noticing that you weren't aging?"

"Right. Fat good that did me. Now I'm going to be stuffed and put in your living room, after you take my lungs to replace those cancerous ones."

"How did-"

"Your vocal cords sound as though they are made of barbed wire. It doesn't take Elven ears to hear that."

"Right. Moving on. Tell me about your father's death."

Alger picked up the pillow and took his time wedging it between his back and the wall. "Taur-nu-Fuin was truly a forest under shadow. Most families fled the depths of the forest to live in or near Thranduil's caves. My family did as well. Evil creatures swarmed in the darker places of the forest. My weapons and armor forge was constantly busy.

"For a moment, it seemed that the shadow would be lifted, when messengers brought news of the fall of Smaug. In the preparations for the march, I did small repairs as quickly as I could, then waited for their return. No one expected a battle. We expected the caves to be empty, full of plunder. We needed to remove it from path of common thieves and bandits. What I know of the battle itself is all second hand, and you know it from The Hobbit. I have no need to retell it here. It was the first time I ever heard of a Hobbit, however.

"Our troops returned victorious, but my father returned carried on a stretcher. I was the one to greet his friends who bore him to my family's home. Their slow pace and long expressions told me my father was slain. His brutalized body told me how. His head was almost completely hewn from his body, and a spearshaft had ripped through his chest. The Orcs desecrated the corpses of their dead enemies. They cut off his right hand, which he pulled the bowstring back with, and stabbed out his eyes.

"Upon the sight, I cried out, so great was that pain! My mother heard my screams and came to join me. When she saw him, she embraced the stiff remains. My father's friends tried to comfort her, but she shouted at them in Quenya, which they could not understand, ' _Márenya hehtanenyë. Melindonya sinomë hillenyes. Mandossenna hilyuvanyes!_ ' Then-"

"Half a second," Grimvoice cuts in. "What does that mean?"

"It is an oath. She said, 'I abandoned my home. I followed my lover here. I shall follow him to Mandos!' My mother swore to die to continue existing by my father's side." He hangs his head to hide his face from the camera. "Then she fell asleep, never to awaken. We buried them together, at the base of a tree." He pauses to cup his hands over his mouth, then wipe away a tear. "This pain will always linger, for I sundered us forever. By my greed, I have destroyed what chance I had of reunion."

"Do you now know what the mortal fear of death is?"

"No. I will never sicken or age. Every chance for my heart to break, as my mother's did, passed when my parents died. Violence must murder me. That is the fundamental difference between us."

"But, you don't know what will happen to you when you die, you said so yourself."

"I don't know if my betrayal of the Powers was enough to ban me from Mandos, or if even I could reach Mandos, seeing as Aman and Ennor have been sealed from this place."

"What happens to us?"

"Have comfort mortal; you will die and join your family in your father's halls, unless you were an evil man." Alger looks up to the camera and shouts, "Then you will wander this world as nothing more than a shadow of hatred, like the wraiths of the Barrowdowns!"

Grimvoice marches the next question along, as though he hadn't heard Alger's threat. "Tell me about the Fourth Age."


	4. The Video Camera Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we get into this part of the interview, I managed to squeeze another answer out of Alger the other day, that fits into this part of his life.
> 
> I was sniffling through the end the Fellowship of the Ring on the couch, trying to not get the pages wet, when David came out of the kitchen (In Elven society, men do the cooking, something that I took advantage of) and asked me what I was crying about. I blubbered something along the lines of "Boromir's dead!" and he nodded.
> 
> "His story is a well known tragedy in Gondor. His valor and strength is remembered still; he is a national hero, like your George Washington."
> 
> "Why did he have to die to redeem himself?" I whined.
> 
> David shook his head. "He didn't. He died to save to Hobbits. He never had to redeem himself because he never disgraced himself."
> 
> "I thought that trying to take the One Ring was the disgrace."
> 
> "No. The One Ring took over Boromir. Recall; he had spent months resisting its power, and his weakness was his most virtuous trait: love for his country. That is the way the Ring works: it takes your desires and uses them to seduce and ultimately, control you."
> 
> And there you have it everyone. Boromir is a hero, not a thief. Now, if only I had asked him what Tom Bombadil is!

* * *

 

"The Fourth Age," Alger tilts his head back and squints, as though he's dredging up details from long put away memories. "Tar-Elessar, Tar-Eldarion, Tar-Eldacal, Tar-Calascon, Tar-Nárescon, Tar-Nandarion, Tar-Nenalasson, Tar-Nessanér, Tar-Lassimo, Tar-Maltasar, Tar-Tasarion, Tar-Altorno, Tar-Aldanion, and finally, Tar-Alcarrímo. The Kings of Men, through to the beginning of the Fifth Age that I can recall. What do you want to know, in particular?"

Grimvoice grunts. "The high points. The important stuff. What was Tar-Eldarion like?"

"I never met him in person, so I could not tell you."

Silence echoes for a few seconds, letting the microphones pick up every little move that Alger makes. "You know what I mean," says Grimvoice.

"All I know of him is his reputation. We called him, 'Tar-Eldarion the Diplomat.' He was wise and noble, not a warrior like his father. Tar-Elessar rid the world of orcs by blood in battle, but his son built alliances. Most importantly, he established trade routs that stretched as far as Balandor. It is said that he started what became the greatest prosperity men had seen since Númenor. He ruled for hundreds of years, his reign extended by his Elven blood.

"Of the others, I can tell you very little. The numbers of the Elves in Ennor were fast dwindling. King Thranduil's son, Legolas, left for the west, and many followed him there. After Legolas left, our connection to the world of men weakened, and we closed our society even more. Men weren't certain that we existed at all, though they knew of the Elves in Balandor, for they traded often with the Noldor. I know very little of the kings of Gondor after Tar-Eldarion, because I did not lay eyes on a single mortal for several thousand years.

"In the end of the Fourth Age of Middle-earth, a group of men wandered deep into the forest. We avoided them, but more and more came, cutting down the trees and building new homes. King Thranduil sent a group of Elves to meet them and ask them to leave. What I've heard of the encounter is rumor and myth, but the men were very surprised that anyone was in the forest at all, and refused to leave. The men told the Elven ambassadors that they were refugees of the reign of Tar-Alcarrímo.

"This king was a man unfit to be king, they told us. They had been banished to our forest; or 'Naluyân,' as they called it. The prisons had filled up, so Tar-Alcarrímo had ordered people who weren't to be executed sent to inhospitable and desolate regions of Ennor.

"Soon after, Tar-Alcarrímo was murdered by his own advisors, marking the end of the Fourth Age, and the banished people were allowed to return. Many of them stayed, however, and fugitives often fled to our forest.

"The people of Gondor were farmers and knew no other way to make a living for themselves. We Elves lived from the bounty of the forest alone. When the exiled Gondorians tried to build new lives for themselves in our forest, they unintentionally destroyed ours. Some Elves simply retreated deeper into the forest, myself among them. Some left Middle-earth for Balandor. Some joined Gondorian society. For those of us who had decided to stay, life grew steadily more difficult. It wasn't long before we began to starve.

"Finally King Thranduil had had enough. He called the few hundred of us left and gave a speech. He asked us to join him in immigrating to Balandor. He told us that he had met with the council of Gondor (After Tar-Alcarrímo's disastrous reign, all power had been taken away from the king, and a council of elders made the decisions.) and had, for the price of a fleet of ships, sold Greenwood to Gondor. Many of us were furious. I didn't really have any strong feelings either way, but I recalled that my mother had been exiled from Balandor. At first, I planned to stay by my parents' tree and eventually join Gondorian society. But then, I was approached by the leader of the Elves against King Thranduil's decision. They needed a smith for what they had in mind.

"At first I scoffed at the idea. Going to the Waters of the Awakening to find and join the Evair ( _Avari_ )? I doubted that the Evair were still alive, much less still Elves. But the idea sounded good. It was a wild place, far from Gondor and its choking masses. If we didn't find the Evair, at least we would find quiet solitude. I was too easily persuaded.

"The night after our decision, we all had the same dream. It wasn't a prophecy, but Irmo's plea for us to return to Aman. I know this dream too well, for it haunts me almost every night since that fateful decision. And when I despair, I almost go mad with regret.

"In the dream, I first feel warm, damp sand beneath my feet, and a soft breeze pushing at my back. I smell Belegaer and recognize it, even though I have never smelt that ocean's air before. I open my eyes. I'm standing on a white sand beach, looking into a forest. A shadow catches my eye in the trees; it is two figures running to meet me. The first is my mother. She laughs, her red cloth flashing through the trees. My father follows close behind, singing a hymn:

'I falathrim aind fain  
Iallar anand angwen  
Mistiel uin aerlin vain  
Nyss 'wîn aderthannen  
Darthar min ndôr Belain.  
Pelinc din govaded?'

'The long white shores  
Call to us all along  
Having strayed from the fair song of the Ainur  
Our reunited families  
Wait in the land of the powers.  
Have we the strength to meet them again?'

I yearn to embrace them, but instead I turn away. I expect to see Belegaer, but the beach vanishes and I'm standing before my parents' tree. It's on fire, and I cannot move to save it. Then I awake, choking on smoke."

Alger hides his eyes with the palms of his hands. "If only I had heeded their warning!"


	5. The Video Camera Part 4

"The Belain did not willingly let us from their grasp," Alger said softly. "They sent everything from beasts to weather against us. At every step, more of us abandoned the journey. When we finally reached the Easter Sea, only a handful was left. It was foolish to try, but with a group of eleven people, we tried to sail across it. Ulmo rose up and churned the ocean. He pulled our leader into the depths and crushed our poor vessel. I was thrown free of the wreckage, luckily, and managed to keep myself afloat with a piece of the deck. After the storm, there were only three of us left clinging to the broken remains, Mirgalen, Gilorn, and myself. We had no way to navigate: there are no maps or even stories of the waters we were crossing. Blindly, we crawled onto the first pitiful, rocky shore that we met.

"We saw no Evair, but we saw evidence of civilization. There was small trail, and it led to a small, fortified village. I would know later that we were in Britain.

"The people were friendly and curious, if not cautious at first. We started learning their language very quickly, and soon were joining them in their daily lives, helping them in the fields. Then the Belain gave us our final piece of misfortune.

"A blight swept through the area, destroying several crops of wheat. They decided that the supernatural was at fault. We were blamed because we had crawled out of the ocean, where many supernatural things apparently lived, and we were unnaturally tall. Gilorn and Mirgalen also fit what their idea of Fairies looked like, something I wouldn't know until later. They ordered us to undo the mischief that we had done, but we couldn't, so we were sentenced to death. We didn't quite understand everything that they said, so we didn't realize that they meant to kill us, to burn us alive, until that wretched night.

"We were bound tightly, and Gilorn was tied with chains to an iron pole. I was thinking that they planned to starve us for several nights tied to a pole as a punishment, but they started to pile wood and brush around him. We were confused. Then they threw melted pig fat all over him, and suddenly he was in flames. He was screaming, and then I realized what they meant to do. The people backed away from the screams because they were so loud, covering their ears. Mirgalen and I started to try to wriggle from our ropes, but they were so tight and so strong we couldn't get free. It was so horrible, so hopeless, listening to Gilorn scream.

"I think I swooned because the next thing I remember they were dragging me to that pole, to the still smoking ashes of Gilorn. The people were chanting and Mirgalen was sobbing and singing a song of farewell in Sindarin. I don't know why I did it, but I screamed as they started to wrap chains around me. I screamed as loud as I could to the point that it didn't come my vocal cords anymore; my entire body shrieked straight from my soul. The men trying to tie me to the pole dropped me in Gilorn's ashes and fled with the people covering their ears. I continued to scream until I was sure they were gone, and I started to struggle free. It took me almost all night, but I got free of the ropes in Gilorn's ashes. I ran through the town, searching for where Mirgalen was imprisoned. I found him two days later." Alger stops, and rests his chin on his knees.

"Well? What happened? Where did you find him?"

"On the local lord's gate."

"On the gate? I don't understand."

"Well, I found part of him on the gate."

"Part of him?"

"His head. They had beheaded Mirgalen and displayed his head on the gate."

There's a pause, and Grimvoice mumbles, "What did you do after you saw Mirgalen?"

"I wept, I sang a song of mourning, and I ran as fast as I could."

"Where to?"

"The forest. I still didn't know where I was going, but I wandered around until I found another village and more nice people to stay with. This time I had good sense and joined their worship. The nice people I found were especially wonderful and interesting to me, for they were smiths. I was adopted by them and worked for them, and it didn't take me long to become know as a master smith. It was in this time that I learned the language more or less completely, but I still struggled with pronouncing some sounds, so the people guessed that I came from Rome (the belief was aided with me being so tall and dark), and they forgave my accent. They named me Einion, which I quite liked, as it meant "Anvil".

"I learned how to fit in the society, and they got used to me. Word somehow got to the local presiding lord that I was an excellent smith, and he himself came to the family I was staying with to ask me to work in the fort. The local lord wasn't very wealthy, but he was kind, and he paid me to arm his soldiers. This is how I came to make the sword that most likely is remembered as Excalibur, though I don't know who gave the sword that name.

"It was mid-winter, about twenty years since I had gone into the Lord Caronus' service. He came to me old and ailing in the middle of the night, with questions and a request. He asked me if I was one of the Tylwyth Teg – The Fair Folk. When I told him I didn't understand, he explained that Fairies are supernatural people who live very long lives, who live under islands in the sea, or under lakebeds. He guessed that I at the very least had some fairy blood in me, seeing as I wasn't very fair. I was speechless, for I had kept to myself all this time; I had never thought of how I do not age as the people did. It troubled me slightly, because I had wanted to disappear in this land, I'd already seen the deadly effects of being associated with the supernatural.

"He asked me where I came from, and I told him; I told him everything. In the end he still believed that I was a Fairy, as I had washed up from the ocean. He wanted to see some Fairy magic, but I explained that I liked smithing better and didn't know how to do magic. My suspicions are that he wasn't completely a Christian. He, like many in power, had ancestors from Rome, but barely spoke any Latin, instead fluent in the local flavor of Celtic, and took part in the local pagan practices, though they were called by Christian names. His family's poor state, and being largely Celts themselves, put him in a lower position compared to many of the Roman lords around him. His name wasn't truly Latin either; it was Caron with –us added to sound Latin.

"My speaking of smithing reminded him of one of his intentions for coming down to visit me. Another lord, a greater, richer lord had heard of my talents and wished for me to make him a sword. As the old lord told me he became even more excited, and confided to me that he could make the lord pay a greater price for hiring me, I, who Fairy of some sort. I agreed to be hired out, and a month later I rode with my lord's youngest son to this rich lord.

"The son, named Aled, was in his 20's, and a soldier. He was very kind to me, though I suspected that he was afraid of me, but he never let it surface. When we reached the castle I could tell that Aled was nervous, which made me think I had cause for worry too.

"When we first came upon it I was in awe. The castle had real 12 feet deep stone walls, and a stream's course had been changed so it filled huge trenches around the castle's base with water. Then my awe turned to disgust, for there was such a stench! Latrines emptied into that water, there was huge heaps of rotting garbage on the banks, and I saw corpses floating in the slime. Then, I saw something that shakes my heart still; I saw the freshly killed body of a man in a wire cage hanging from the wall. I reined the horse to a stop, and all I could think of was Mirgalen's head impaled on the fence.

"I called out to Aled that I couldn't go inside the castle. He was a little surprised and worried, and he wanted to know why. When I pointed at the dead man and the ravens feeding off him, Aled looked away in disgust. 'That is the way they punish thieves here. Father does no such ungodly torture.' He murmured a phrase in Latin as though it was a magic spell, and I sang a mourning song under my breath.

"And so we went into the gates. Our horses shied at the bridge so we had to lead them across, making some of the soldiers above us laugh. Aled had to lead me across by my shirtsleeve too, as I was shaking in terror. Inside the castle there was a mini village that raised one of the foulest smells I have ever sensed. Even Aled wrinkled his nose as he led me to the keep.

"A guard stopped us at the keep's great doors, and listened patiently to Aled stutter out our quest, and the guard led us to the lord on his throne, explaining that they had just been under siege and had finally defeated a strong enemy.

"The lord was a huge, strong man in the prime of life, a warrior who had killed many. The guard announced Aled and me loudly. The lord got out of his chair and walked to us. He step was springy and he greeted us with a slight bow. 'Blessed be this day that I meet you!' he said and led us back to his throne by our shoulders. 'This is the Fairy smith?' he asked Aled. Aled nodded. 'Here is the gold to hire him for a year's time. Go in safety.'

"Aled was a little surprised at the swiftness of the deal, and quickly counted the coins, weighing them in his hand. The lord had paid more than the fore-agreed price, and Aled protested. 'Tis my obligation to give deeds to the friendship of so good a lord,' the greater lord answered. I later understood that he was paying to keep Lord Caronus as an ally, for he was standing before the tide of Saxons. I was grief-stricken and homesick to see Aled ride away, but I was left little time to dwell on my sorrow, for my work started the next day. It turned out that my stay with my new employers would be cut short, and I never saw Aled or Lord Caronus again.

"My work on the sword was far harder than I ever fathomed. I was worked like a slave, from dawn to dusk with a guard to watch over me. The tools were more primitive than my own, and the resources less pure. Then, one month before I completed the sword, the castle was put under siege again. I couldn't spend all of my time on the sword; I had to mend the soldier's weapons and armor. I could smell the dead outside; I could see the terror on the guard's faces, the sleepless hollows under their eyes. Just as I finished laying the leather on the handle one morning, the keep was conquered. The lord burst in and snatched the sword from my exhausted hands. He was a true swordsman, and my sword became a deadly, silver fire in his hands. Still, it did not save him or the castle. I heard that he was pinioned by a dozen arrows before falling, as none could come near without losing limbs.

"The foreign men spoke of and presented the strange un-jeweled sword that their late enemy had wielded against them to their general, and he sent them in search of the smith, for the sword was obviously no more than minutes old, it still had the heat of the forge in it. They found me asleep on the smithy flour; curled up in a ball by the anvil I had toiled over for so long. The fire was still burning in the forge, and I was the only person there. I was shaken awake and practically carried to the audience of the general. Upon seeing me, he laughed and said that no man so slight and thin could ever wield a hammer, but they grabbed my hands and showed them to him. Only a smith had hands as I did, blacked with soot, calloused, and tougher than leather." At this point Alger holds up his hands to the camera as an example.

"They nursed me back to health, for I had starved as the rest of the castle had starved, and gave me the name Ælfgar. I was made to turn out many other swords and weapons for this new lord, but the conditions in which I worked were far better; I received more meals, sleep, better tools, and finer clothes. It was like I was more of a respected servant. Though I was not paid, I was given a comfortable life. I never suffered, and it was years before I realized that I was a slave. I was a respected Master of my art. I never again made swords to contain so much magic, but still the swords I made were great swords. The general, named Ælle, soon had conquered all of the land that I knew with my swords.

"Later the lord died and the sword passed to his sons, and stories of my sword blended with myth. My immortality was a family secret, a secret passed from father to son. That line was broken with the Norman invasion. I left then, free to wander the country." Alger sighs, and looks up at the camera, frowning. "I'm tired. And hungry. Could we continue some other day?"

Grimvoice answers after a slight pause. "We can allow it. This was a treasure trove of information; we'll need to bring up comparisons to the ancient British histories to see how your tale matches up anyways. We'll start bright and early tomorrow morning, how about that?"

"Sure," Alger mumbles, and flops over, onto his side, tucking the pillow under his head. The camera is turned off, and that is the end of the video tape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did some research of my own, though probably not as thorough as Grimvoice could do. I can guess that he washed up on the shores of West Sussex, roughly 450AD. This was when Rome abandoned the Roman settlers in Britain to fend for themselves; and the Anglo-Saxon invasion picked up speed. It's hard to tell which battle he describes, since so few records survive of the time, but he probably is talking about the siege of Anderitum (modern-day Pevensey) in 491AD.


	6. Two Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second time that David arrived, he stayed a few weeks. My neighbors thought I had a new boyfriend and was living in sin, or something like that, but not so. I was typing out transcripts with Legrists help. This next bit contains two letters and a questionnaire that we exchanged.

* * *

 

_David,_

_If you must leave, as you were telling me yesterday, could you answer a few of my questions? I have to go to work, so I can't ask you them. I wrote them down on this paper. Could you answer them please? Put them under my keyboard if you have to leave while I'm gone. If you don't want to answer them, just leave the papers blank and put them under my keyboard._

_Rachel_

Dear Rachel,

You're correct; I must leave while you are away. Perhaps I will come back, perhaps not. We will see what fate gives me.

You confided to me that you thought yourself an obsessive fan, maybe a little too obsessive. The reason I am here, in your gracious home, is because there are fans being too obsessive. As you recall, I'd been kidnapped. That tape would be longer if I hadn't managed to escape their hideout. They underestimated the power of an old Elf to recover quickly from being poisoned. I have been hiding in your house for the past few weeks, planning to infiltrate their hideout. Tonight, I am going to try to do some sabotage, so I may not return in the near future. I don't believe you are in any danger, but it would be wise to keep the interviews a secret.

I feel much more willing to give an interview to a kind woman, who would take a bum into her home than a group of kidnappers.

Sincerely,

_(He signed it in tengwar. Also, his hand-writing is really, really good. I had a translator look at it, and she says that it says, "Son of Black-arrow Keensword, who is called Redcloak".)_

Pilimorion Legrist, i Carangol estannen.

_How would you compare Elven and human imaginations and creativity?_

Well, humans have the power to create works of the imagination; Eru gave it to them. But, by no means are we without the power of creativity. It comes with a price though; we must be more careful with this power than men; our creations can control us.

What would Fëanor have done if someone said to him, "I have seen jewels with brilliance greater than your Silmarilli."?

I think he would have accused that someone of being a liar.

_What do you think happened to the Avari?_

I have no idea, but I never found them in my travels.

_Do you think the Avari are evil for having refused the summons of the Valar? Why?_

No, I do not. They were afraid, and I can understand that very well. You could call me a refuser for not going to Valinor with my family and friends, and I would agree.

_Has anyone ever flirted with you before? If so, do tell the tale!_

Why is everyone so interested in this detail? Believe it as you wish: my manner and unusual appearance has attracted women in ages before now. The problem is, they seem to want me as a possession, or perhaps bragging rights. It never has anything to do with love to my eyes.

The most interesting one I can remember was an encounter with a rich noble woman who promised to help me get a good start as a black smith in Spain. She invited me to her bedchamber to help her gather an item that she said she'd need to settle the deal, (I figured a vault was hidden in her room and that she need to retrieve money from it.) and it soon became clear that the journey's purpose was a little more risqué. I backed politely from her and tried to open the door, but found her servants had locked me in with her, and were having a laugh over it. I told her that I had no interest in her, and I will not repeat her words, for they sickened me so much that I have forced myself to forget them. She made a grab for me, so I dodged her, jumped out her second story window, and fled the city, nursing a broken ankle from the fall. After that, I was careful to refuse any requests to go into private living quarters, realizing that someday I might not be so lucky to escape with nothing but a broken ankle. You see, unwilling participation in sex would kill me, and as it already has been noted, I'm not fond of death.

_Where were you when the Bubonic Plague struck Europe?_

I was in Rome, living in a "hotel". I write that hesitantly because I'm not sure you'd understand what I mean when I speak of the word. Hotels in that time were not like they are now, as most easily noted by the lack of cleanliness. People slept in flea and lice ridden beds that hadn't been cleaned in years. Customer service didn't exist. People were robbed, murdered, and raped in hotels often, so I had to be very careful.

Despite all of this, I was living fairly comfortably, searching for a place to start my next blacksmith shop. Then the world came tumbling down upon everyone. The plague struck in the hotels by the ports first, and spread like wildfire. Every day there was more weeping in the streets and more bodies being taken to burial. It created a panic, and people fled the city. When the bodies were so numerous that they would be dumped in the street to be buried in a mass grave, people started to believe that the world was ending. I was terrified. This horrible illness struck everyone but me, for I am an Elf and I cannot contract an illness. It almost looked as though I would be the only person left in the city. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Opportunists looted houses that belonged to the dead. I walked in mourning, singing for the dead people in the empty streets in broad daylight. Normally, the streets would be packed with people, selling and buying goods. Now there was nothing but waste. That is the sign of true devastation: the evil scent of the dead and the lonely cries of children.

_Why are you so afraid of death? I thought you would be happy to see long lost relatives again._

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Remember in the first tape, what I said about Cuiviénen? I was not supposed to go back. My friends, Gilorn and Mirgalen, weren't supposed to either. In fact, I was part of a large group of Elves. The Valar wanted us to go to Balandor… Valinor. I said that I could call myself an Avar for refusing to go to Balandor. However, the Belain didn't like our decision, they did their best to stop us from reaching Cuiviénen. Ulmo destroyed our ships as we crossed the water; Tulkas sent beasts to bar our way. In the end, only a few of us made it to the shore of Cuiviénen without turning back or being slain. Now I know the Belain's reasons, for Cuiviénen had become England, a place of wild mortals who didn't know the Belain. I do not know what awaits me when I am in the custody of the Belain again.

_How do you keep your sanity after seeing so much death?_

I have a rare gift of being able to remember joy in life. Tragedies, times when I've almost lost myself to the halls of Mandos, and witnessing deeds of horror all have a terrific toll on me, but, in it all I see the light of the cycle. It has been my experience that the world cannot live in horror forever. It must return to joy and prosperity someday.

_Do/Did you have any brothers or sisters?_

I'm sorry, never. I was an only child.

_Did Elves have pets like my pet hamster Mowsey?_

We didn't choose rodents as pets, but we would domesticate dogs and birds. I'm not certain if horses could be called pets, but every family in the country had at least one at all times. They were our transportation.

_What is your favorite season of the year?_

Late Spring. That is when everything interesting starts to happen; change is the most rapid. The most magical scenes in nature are found in this time.

_What is your favorite time of day?_

I love watching the sunrise. Animals start to awaken and the world has a sense of renewal.

Harthon i ad-'ovedinc. _("I hope we will meet again." It's in tengwar.)_


	7. The Making of a Masterpiece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While waiting for David to return from his mission, I made the mistake that probably caused things to turn out the way that they did. I wrote a short story for class that was based on one of Legrist's stories. This is it.

* * *

 

The clamor of war could not reach this place, deep in the bowels of this grand castle. Yet, the craftsman was aware of it, as he was aware of his leathered hands. He knew from the scent of death that seeped in from the walls holding off the moat. He knew from the food that had gone from putrid to unfit for dogs. He knew from the faces of the men that held the weariness of warriors on the losing side. The smith smiled and sang as he fixed armor and weapons for them, trying to cheer them, but it never worked as well as he hoped. He knew very well that if they didn't survive, he would be another corpse rotting in the moat.

One day, when the fighting had calmed down for a moment, the lord himself came down to visit the craftsman. He was a mighty leader, and kept his face a mask of encouragement. This day, however, his mask had a few cracks. His eyes were blacked holes on his pale face, and the stench of worry clang to him. "How is it coming?" he asked as he always did, a slight quaver in his voice.

"I am almost finished, my lord," the craftsman answered. "Are you ill?"

"Thou hast been unfinished for weeks," the lord replied. "I am not ill, but I fear that we all will be. Art thou not ill, who works day and night? Are Fays free of the burden of weariness?"

The craftsman shook his head slowly. "A Fay I may be, but free of the burdens of the world I am not. I feel weary as well."

"Alas, if a magical thing is tired, then our taxed death approaches!" The lord suddenly turned and grabbed the Fay craftsman's arms. A maniacal gleam shone in the lord's eyes, and he shouted, "You must finish before the sun sets! For when my doom approaches, I will slay one thousand before they take my home!"

The Fay man turned away and brought the sword to him. He said softly and calmly, "I need the finest leather you can spare, my lord. The grip is all that is left."

Before the lord could answer, the quiet was shattered by the horrible sound of a ballista's stone striking the wall. The entire castle shuttered for an instant before the outer wall that held off the moat came rumbling down, the screams of the men caught in it were lost in the death cries of the falling stones.

The Fay smith and the lord stood silent for a moment, wincing at the sounds. "The crafts of Fays are said to be miracle workers, blessed by God," the lord whispered. "Your master claimed you are a student of Weyland himself!" He ripped off his heavy leather vest that served as light armor and shoved it into the Fay's hands. "What use will this be with such a weapon?"

The Fay snatched the leather up without voicing his doubts. He started working almost too quickly for the lord's eyes to follow. The Fay began to sing in a language that was long lost, as though that was all he could do to subdue the fear within him. He tore the vest apart and cut the good leather into strips. The lord looked on in wonder at the odd grace that came with the Fay's speed as he set the leather in water and stretched it with strength not found among men.

The wet hide made rhythmic slapping sounds as he braided it. Like an odd counter-melody, it seemed to sound in time to the Fay's voice. One thousand enemy soldiers marched above. The music was maddening; the Fay's fingers were making a rhythm of hope to the beat of doom. He finally sewed the leather into place, and all movement and sound ceased as the Fay held out the sword for the lord. The lord reached out to take it, but the smith pulled back a moment.

"My lord, I cannot promise miracles. This sword is a tool and is bound to the one who wields it for whatever intention. It is not a soul in itself!"

Ignoring the craftsman before him, the lord grabbed the sword quickly, accidentally cutting the Fays hands. The Fay cried out sharply as the blade sliced through the hardened skin as though it were air. He stood for a second, watching his hands as they bled freely. The lord stared in dismay as the Fay closed his eyes and fell to the ground, limp as bit of worn rope. The sword gleamed in the lord's hands and his dismay turned to awe. What a powerful thing!

The beat of doom resumed like the beat of a heart, deep and steady. Suddenly a new voice joined the melody: a scream like a wildcat from the mountains and wails of the mice caught in its deadly silver claws. The whines of arrows joined in, making percussive thumps as they hit their targets. Then there was silence; the instruments left to rest; the song completed.


	8. David Returns From His Mission

When David returned the third time, it was about two o'clock in the morning. I hardly recognized him because he had gone to extra lengths to be unrecognizable. He was literally covered with filth; he wore a torn plaid jacket and pajama pants that looked as though once upon a time they were white, and he stood there stooped, looking half a foot shorter. I was half conscious and didn't have my contacts in, and started to close the door in his face, thinking he was the guy down the street that gets really high every night and often ends up knocking on random people's doors around then. Just before I got the door shut, David whispered softly to me, "Please let me in, Rachel. I have an appointment with your sofa." I almost fainted from surprise.

He didn't say much, just went about his customary shower. As usual, I had forgotten to put the towel in there. He poked his head out the door ask for the towel, but then poked his head out again to ask if I had any more towels, and I saw his chest. There was a long, bleeding cut down the middle, still held together by stitches. It looked like the scar on my grandfather's chest from getting double bi-pass surgery. I threw up when I saw it. I threw up again when I found out what it meant.

I hid in my corner and began to re-read the cheerful parts of The Lord of the Rings, drinking a cup of chamomile tea with lots of honey to get rid of the puke-taste. David lay on the sofa, drinking a cup of water. As usual, he broke the silence first. "I don't know if you are in any danger. I don't think they followed me. Please forgive me for putting you in this position."

I nodded, clutching my book like an infant with its security blanket.

"I need you to keep a few more secrets for me."

My fingers felt numb.

He got up slowly and walked to the door, picked up the bag full of video-tapes he had left when he came in, and dumped them on the floor by my feet. They all were carefully dated with a room number or hallway number marked on them. "These are surveillance tapes. They video taped the dissection."


	9. A Few Bits Worthy of Notice

_As you can guess, there are several hundred hours of videotapes. I won't bore you with all of them. I put together a sort of collage of them that summarize the events best._

_This one is from a security tape._

* * *

 

The camera reveals a passage that is weakly lit with those energy-saving lights that they like to use in big buildings and schools. It pans back and forth over and over the passage, which has a bare concrete floor and unfinished walls.

A door opens at one end and someone stealthily runs up the hall, making almost no noise at all. The camera zooms in on him. It's Legrist. He's almost to the end of the passage when a siren starts up. Almost instantly, the door slams open and men with guns rush in. Legrist turns and sprints back down the hall, but the other door is blocked as well. He stops and puts his hands up, and the bulges in his hooded sweatshirt made from various tools of sabotage are made more visible. ( _At this point while watching it, David muttered,_ "How could I be so daft? It was a trap!")

The men cautiously approach, and surround him. One guy shoves Legrist to the wall and pats him down. After pulling wire clippers and a crowbar out from under Legrist's sweatshirt, he just pulls the sweatshirt off. Then he yanks off the stocking cap, revealing Legrist's ears. Suddenly he jumps over the men's heads and starts climbing the support beams like they are rungs on a ladder.

Someone shouts frantically, "Shoot him! It's him, shoot him!" There's a soft bang and a whiz as a tranquilizer dart misses Legrist. Someone shoots again, and the dart hits him in the shoulder. He drops from the wall with a cry.

He's been captured again.

* * *

 

_This next bit was on one of the videos of the experiments._

* * *

 

Two men in sterile, white clothing wheel unconscious Legrist, who's strapped down to one of those wheel-around beds they use at hospitals, to an x-ray machine and put him in. They watch the screen that shows the x-ray, but the x-ray they get is weak and barely visible. One checks to see if he set things up correctly, but the machine is in perfect working order. Finally, the lab man un-straps Legrist's arm and shines a flashlight onto it. Looking at the shadow, he puts his hand under the beam as well. There is a definite difference in the darkness of the shadow.

* * *

 

_After the dissection, and the conclusion that Elves are the same on the inside as humans, except that they heal faster and they had to constantly fight new tissue that tried to fix itself. They also concluded that Humans and Elves could interbreed because they are the same inside. I'm sure an anatomy professor would have loved this. I couldn't watch it; I hid in my room and listened. I'm not a masochist._

_Blood outside of the body makes me feel sick, so this bit after they stitched Legrist up really freaked me out._

* * *

 

One of the captors in white doctor clothes is drawing blood from his arm, and Legrist is chatting with him.

"So what's up, Doc?" he says, imitating Bugs Bunny. "Make me an eternal spring of blood for all patients needing it?"

"Nope, just gotta do some tests on it." He glances at the tube where the blood is flowing into a bag. "Squeeze the rubber ball I gave you a few more times, the flow is slowing down."

Legrist doesn't. Instead, he lets the ball fall from his fingers and bounce onto the floor. "I did that with the expressed purpose of annoying you."

"Don't worry, I'm impervious today," the "doctor" says, picking up the ball again.

"Really? Did you make some sort of breakthrough? Find the spring of eternal youth?"

The "doctor" twitches a little. "Of course not. We're looked for the cure to AIDS."

"Or you're trying to become immortal."

"Or we're looking for the cure to AIDS."

Legrist shakes his head. "That can't be. My body doesn't have any way to drive off disease because there is no illness that can dwell in something that is more spirit than body. Are you hoping to suck part of my spirit out with the blood? I'm not a vampire from a B Movie, you can't become someone like me by drinking my blood."

The doctor twitches again.

Legrist drops the ball. "I have a lesson for you, miserable twit. It's a song. You might recognize it. It comes from the last time someone like you tried such a trick.

" _Kadô zigûrun zabathân unekkû Eruhîn_  
_udûbanim dalad ugrus Ar-Pharazôn_  
_azgaranâdu Avalôi si bârun-adûnô_  
_rakkhatû kamât sôbêthumâ Eruvô azrê_  
_Nai phurrusim akhâs-ada. Anadûni akallabi._  
_Adûnâim azulada agannûlô burudan_  
_nênum adûn batân akhaini ezendi îdô kathî_  
_batânî rôkhî-nam êphalek_  
_îdôn akallabêth_  
_Êphal êphalek Athanâtê_."

After a moment of silence, the lab-coat man says, "Sorry, but I couldn't understand the words."

"You should learn them; the Belain won't be near so lenient this time around. Ar-Pharazon would like you to know that."

"Or perhaps this world is cut off from Middle-earth and Valinor because the Valar have given up all hope for us."

"And your God truly is Morgoth in disguise. That would explain all of the smiting and mass slaughter of women and children commissioned by said evil."

The "doctor" smiled suddenly and looked down at the bag they were filling with blood. "That's enough of that," he said, pulling the needle out. "You were excited enough to get your blood moving."

* * *

 

_This one is from the taped experiments. They're testing to see which type of sleep inducing agent works best on Legrist. In a quick summary, so far they have found alcohol and bear tranquilizers to be the most effective._

* * *

 

"Alright, let's try laughing gas," one man says, after seeing Legrist's eyes flutter. Legrist responds with a moan. "Good morning, David," says the lab man sitting besides his bed. "How do you feel?"

"I feel like giving myself back to the Valar and taking whatever punishment awaits me there."

"Good, good," the lab man mutters.

"Why are you doing this to me? What will you gain? You can't become an Elf by ripping one to shreds…"

"Enough psycho-babble, we're going to put you under again," the lab-man interrupts as he straps an inhaler mask onto Legrists head and starts the air flow.

All is still for a moment as they wait for him to fall asleep. Suddenly Legrist starts to convulse violently, and his lips turn blue. One of his arms rips free and claws wildly at the mask. "Shit! It's drowning him!" the lab man yells and turns the airflow off. Legrist rips the mask off and hurls it at the lab man. It hits him in the nose with a loud crack, making a small explosion of blood splatter on his silk tie. The various straps and buckles become undone so fast Legrist's hands are barely visible, and he sprints from the room in the all-white pajama-like clothing that they like to use in mental hospitals.

Legrist is free again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What song was Legrist singing? It was the lore of Hi-Akallabêth, or The Downfall of Númenor in Adûnaic. The men of Númenor, led by Ar-Pharazôn, wanted immortality, and sailed to Valinor in order to force the Valar to make them immortal. Eru was not pleased, and thrust them and Númenor to the bottom of the ocean. The only ones that survived with the people who followed Elendil back to Middle-earth.


	10. A Very Old Hymn

I never should have handed in that short story. The discussion class liked it alright, and so did the professor, though they told me that I didn't spend enough time developing the characters and the description a bit heavy handed. My professor must have put the story into the database that they use to spot cheating students. That's the only way I can think of that would possibly lead Grim-voice, Lab-coat, and various minions to us.

It was about a month after I handed in the story. David had gotten comfortable (his injuries were disappearing phenomenally quickly), and I was getting ready for finals. The day before it happened, I was taking a break from roasting my brain over "British Literature of the 19th century, Wordsworth and the Romantics", and David was waiting for meat to thaw. He sat down beside me on the couch and said, "I had an odd dream last night."

I didn't answer for a moment, brain too cooked to quite understand the implication. "What, like a premonition? I thought you always dream about your parents in Valinor."

He shrugged. "No, it wasn't about the future. It was about a close friend that I had in the past."

"Really? What was he like?"

He leaned back on the sofa, covering he eyes, as though to picture it more clearly in his mind. "Remember when I said that some of us tried to integrate ourselves in Gondorian society? He was one of them. He was very young, only a few centuries old. He made some human friends and left us to join them. About two hundred years later, he came back. His friends were all dead, and so were their grandchildren. None of us really understood his sorrow, myself included."

"You mean you understand it now?"

He shook his head. "I worked hard to be detached because of his experiences. Yet somehow, I have found that separating oneself from human's mortality to be impossible while living among them. Anyhow, in my dream, he sang an old song composed by the Sindar who fought Morgoth. I, myself have sung it myself many times, but I never understood it completely until he sang it again, in my dream."

I dutifully sat up and crossed my legs like it was story-time. "Well, go on!"

"You've only heard Elven singing on the video tapes, haven't you?" he said. "It's much different in person. Much louder. Are you sure your neighbors wouldn't mind?"

"They'll get over it," I said, waving him on.

"It's a prayer, of sorts. The first line is a call to the Belain; so it starts really loud." I nodded and continued waving him on.

He straightened his back, closed his eyes, and just about started screaming. It wasn't actually much louder than a really obnoxious party; but the sound seemed to echo inside me. He sang without vibrato, and the vowels were nasally, very different from the sound we in the western world are brought up thinking beautiful, and more like "Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares". It brought out an emotion that I've never felt before, and it's as close to a religious experience as I've ever come.

I've never felt a need to communicate with God. Never. My life, until now, has been that boring. The song, though I couldn't understand it, was a desperate cry to God by someone who had lost everything. Someone who was tired of fighting and whose happy memories felt like a mere fantasy. By the second verse I was sobbing. All of my puny responsibilities felt exhaustingly heavy and cruel. In the last verse, another new emotion came to me. A wish to be separate from the world and its weight, by whatever means. The last line was sung softly, with lots of rapid, clear notes, like a calligrapher drawing flourishes on his name. This was the reward: a comfortable, restful place. Heaven, in my Judeo-Christian trained mind was the first thing I could think of.

I was shaking and blubbering, and I think at least three different fluids were leaking from my face. The microwave dinged to let us know the meat was done thawing. David hopped up and scurried to the kitchen to work on dinner, while I washed my face. We didn't say anything for a long time.

The two of us sat down at the counter, which doubles as my kitchen table. "So, this song, it was by someone who is suicidal, right?"

He dropped his fork. "No. And yes. I guess it is suicidal from a human perspective. But we have the option of being reborn with all of our memories, so it's not death in the mortal sense. It's about someone who wants to go to Mandos."

"Mandos," I repeated. "It sounds a lot like the first word of the song. The loudest word."

"That would be because that is the first word, just in a different language. Bannos is the Sindarin version of Mandos."

"What about 'Hîr'? Who is he?"

David laughed. "That's just a title. It means 'lord'. Do you want me to write it down for you?"

"Yesplease," I muttered into my plate.

This is the song. It looks much shorter than it felt.

_Bannos hîr i firn!_  
_Tolo a thollo_  
_Vân charn hen am mbar._  
_Aran Einior,_  
_Hîr i thŷr a thûl!_  
_Tolo a thogo_  
_Edhel o thrach maug._  
_Ídhron i vethed_  
_A sîdh vronadui._

He included a rough translation below:

Mandos, Lord of the Dead!  
Come and take  
This wounded spirit home.  
Manwë,  
Lord of Eagles and Wind!  
Come and lead  
An Elf from a cruel curse.  
I desire the end  
And lasting peace.

The next night, I was woken up by someone knocking on the door. David hid on the floor balcony behind my neighbor's plants while I hurried to the door. I pulled it open to a gun at eye-level. I just kinda froze up; I couldn't breathe or move.

The gun was real. They had black ski masks on their faces along with all black jump suits, covering every inch of visible skin with something. The one with his gun in my face pushed me into the room and whispered, "Sit down and shuddup. This is the police!" It was Grim-voice.

My mouth worked before my mind. "No you're not!"

They ignored me. "Where's David? We know he's here." A cold gun barrel touched my neck, and not a single intelligible word came from my tongue for the thirty seconds it took to get them bored enough to start ransacking my apartment.

Suddenly Grim-voice put a hand over my mouth. Minion#3 stopped yanking things out of the closet and hissed to Lab-coat to quiet down. Then I heard it too. Old rusty metal moaned and creaked under someone's weight. Everyone rushed to the balcony, dragging me along too. He was attempting to climb down to my downstairs neighbors' balcony, but the railing was old, and falling apart as he dangled from it. He tried to swing-jump on the balcony, but the rusty remnants broke at the wrong end of the swing, sending him hurtling into the street dozens of feet below.

My downstairs neighbor angrily stormed onto her balcony to yell at those noisy college students above her, and saw the lot of us peering over the broken banister at David's twisted, motionless body. She vanished back into her apartment, and quickly the street below was a sea of red, white, and blue lights. I was too shaken up to be much use, and Grimvoice's gang was too stunned to put up a fight. The reason they had gone to such extremes was dead.

The police swept through my little apartment with the fury of a hurricane, leaving little undisturbed. For a while, I think that they thought I was in on it somehow. Eventually, the Grimvoice gang was tried and convicted of many crimes – the tapes that David collected at my apartment being the main evidence. The FBI didn't find the secret facility they used to trap and torture David until last year, when the world was paying attention to more important things. I think it's finally safe to share this little section of my diary with the world.

I don't think David is dead. He's on life support, and he hasn't woken up in a decade, but someday he might wake up again. We watched the movies as they came out on DVD together in the coma ward. The Elves seem so much more magical, so much less fragile in the movies – battle-hardened but never battle-scarred. They're lofty, but not lonely in their separation. I'm sure he's amused by them. I wish he'd wake up and tell me his opinion.

_I Veth –The End_


	11. POSTSCRIPT

It was utterly bizarre to me that so many people like this story. Character-wise, Rachel isn't much more than a shell for author/reader insertion, the same way that in shitty romance novels the heroine often has no personality so the reader can just insert themselves into the fantasy. Legrist is more interesting, barely. He's just a tortured-soul archetype. Plot-wise, it's very weak. There isn't much in the way of rising action. It's just information dumps and little vignettes, and in the last chapter, there suddenly is a climax, and it's all over. Prose-wise, this story is nothing special, except for the short-story that is Rachel's retelling of part of Legrist's story. It does, however, hold a shining badge of having very few spelling or grammar errors, which is an accomplishment for a fanfic, kinda.

But, I think I figured it out.

It's a theme, an unconscious criticism I, and many other fanfiction writers have been making towards nerd-culture, to our own fandoms, heck, to our culture in general. It's the whole Anti-Mary-Sue movement, something that I've backed away from on the most part. Ugh, this will take some explanation to get the elephant out of the room so we can think about this more logically. Here goes:

The Anti-Mary-Sue movements were mostly about punishing teen girls for having sexualities and being public about them. Yeah, I'm not so proud of that part of my life. I was a slut-shaming asshole when I was a teenager. Sorry about that. I promise that I've gotten past that nonsense.

But, there was another part of Anti-Mary-Sue-ism that is a valid criticism. This wild obsession with celebrities doesn't honor them. It dehumanizes them. Would you publicly post graphic stories of your cute next-door neighbor screwing you? Thought not. That'd be just creepy and stalkery. For some unknown reason, everyone was acting like that was perfectly alright with Orlando Bloom or any of the other actors that one happened to fancy. Everyone seemed to forget that there were real people behind those images on the screen.

Then there's all of these really personal attacks on politicians, performers, any kind of celebrity, especially if people find them sexually attractive, and we turn around and blame them for having their privacy violated. It's no wonder that so many of them end up self-destructing after years of constant dehumanization and abuse.

So, I wrote a story about people obsessed with a normal Elf, made vulnerable by his separation from his homeland, who end up torturing and eventually killing the object of their obsession. In contrast, Rachel, while curious, respects Legrist's boundaries (after the little stumble in the beginning, anyways). Their relationship isn't all take-take-take; its sharing. That idea, looking back on all of this, is what I was trying to put to words back then, and I guess that it was something that a lot of you felt too.

Thanks for all of the reviews and faves over the years! Let me know if you think I'm way off the mark with this analysis/criticism of nerd-culture.

Namárië!

dreamingfifi

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new to posting stuff here, any suggestions for tags?


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